Week 1, April 21 - April 27

Miles ridden: 353 miles
Time riding: 31 hours 37 minutes
Ascent: 5728 feet


Our total route is 3500 miles and change. So it might seem like we are a tenth of the way to Astoria. But every day we ride a few miles off route as we ride into towns to find food or a place to stay.

Also, we apparently have 120,000 feet of ascent along the route and we have definitely not accomplished 10% of that. 

Still, it feels like a real accomplishment to ride a bike from Washington to Pittsburgh. We rode the entirety of the C&O Canal and the Great Allegheny Passage. We rode across a large part of Maryland. We had some adversity that didn't really dampen our enthusiasm for this trip.

We have also gotten a good rhythm: rise before sunrise, pack up, ride 10 or 20 miles, have a nice long break with some food and water, them push to the next camp with shorter breaks every now and then, set up camp, go to bed by 8:00.

I can't speak for John, but accomplishing this first segment in six days when I was expecting 7 to 10 has given me some optimism. I have no doubt we are going to have much tougher days than yesterday, and bigger problems than a scraping noise in my rear wheel, but I can actually envision riding into Astoria, Oregon.


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